MeFi Projects

In the past year or so, I've added several new translations and comments on games that have mostly been left out of the history of roleplaying, story games, fantasy games, etc. Highlights include seven classical mythology games from the late Renaissance (including the mildly LARP-like "Game of Ceremonies," in which players make sacrifices to Venus and Cupid), a translation of the novel Jeux d'esprit written in 1701 by Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force (who gave a complete version of the collaborative storytelling game "Le Jeu du Roman," along with other games depicted in the novel), and trying out a new format, "Kriegsspiele, Parlament, and Prince Albert: light roleplaying in German, 1796-1893" (a blog post on parlor games and live action military-themed games with roleplaying elements).
posted by Wobbuffet on Dec 27, 2023 - 4 comments

A few years ago my parents gave me my Grandpa Milt's old stained glass stuff, including a large unfinished menorah piece. I've spent the last two weeks finally tackling the logistically and emotionally complicated job of repairing and elaborating on his piece to create a finished work. This is a summary with photos of that process. I also created an exhaustive step-by-step process thread on the fly as I worked through the whole thing.
posted by cortex on Nov 3, 2022 - 8 comments

A few months ago, I posted a rough translation of the rules to a collaborative fairy tale storytelling game more than 200 years old. I've now put that onto a Neocities site with many additional translations: a total of 5 variants of the same game re-published many times between 1801 and 1867, several variants of a game the same age that involves role-playing, and several variants of even older poetry and nonsense games related to the Surrealist game "Exquisite Corpse." There are also pages and translations explaining the history of the games' penalty phase, offering advice on running demos of the storytelling game especially using motifs from the earliest "secondary world" fantasy novel, and possible round-robin storytelling from the 1600s-1700s, as well as links to many additional sources for parlor games from 1551 to 1899.
posted by Wobbuffet on Aug 5, 2022 - 3 comments

I needed a way to share photos and videos for my son's Lacrosse tournaments with other parents. Most solutions require an app download or make it harder than it needs to be. I built PicPack to make the process of collecting and viewing photos and videos super easy. [more inside]
posted by jasondigitized on Feb 16, 2021 - 2 comments

The drawing program that I use automatically records my strokes and spits out a time-lapse video at the end. My composer friend asked me to do a drawing set to one of his songs. So I came up with different line styles and onomatopoeic words to represent the different movements in the song, and roughly timed out my blocks of drawing activity so that we'd be able to (somewhat) sync up the resulting video with the music. More of my drawings here. More of my friend's music here.
posted by D.Billy on Sep 7, 2017 - 3 comments

Our MetaFilter Quilting Bee is up and running. This blog is where we'll display our plans for each quilt, blocks as they're finished, and (eventually!) the finished quilts.
posted by ocherdraco on Dec 11, 2011 - 2 comments

Dream of writing a novel but can’t find time to write? How about setting aside just 1 day? I gathered a team of authors to compose a novel collaboratively in a day (May 28th) and you can watch via the web as every word is composed in real-time. The cover art will be created that day too, which you can observe via live video stream. The collaboration culminates in a free Creative Commons licensed e-book available for download the following day. Wish us luck. We'll need it.
posted by john.c.herman on May 20, 2011 - 1 comment

Was William T Phillips Butch Cassidy? Inspired by a MeFi post I have launched a monthly contest where genealogists and armchair historians compete to gather facts about interesting people from the past. First up: Did Butch Cassidy really die in South America? [more inside]
posted by cda on Mar 27, 2011 - 0 comments

When I introduced Research Club to MeFI in July, I mentioned that we were going on tour soon. Well, we're less than two weeks from leaving, and we're taking submissions for collaboration. This can take a couple forms -- 1) Profiles or 2) Collaborative Projects [more inside]
posted by nímwunnan on Oct 5, 2010 - 1 comment

The premise of this site is that you have recently died, and now you're penning a letter to the rest of the world. The subject matter is open, and can be whatever you'd like: a list of things you found important, a series of regrets, or an open letter to the young. There is only one requirement. Every letter submitted to the site must begin with the same first sentence: "Now that I'm dead, I want to tell you a few things." [more inside]
posted by avoision on Jul 18, 2010 - 3 comments

Fictopedia is an online encyclopedia (in wiki form) of user-generated fictional information. Users are free to add or edit any information they wish on any subject with only two limitations. First, the information must be fictional (we already have Wikipedia for the "real' world) and second, the information must be about original, and not existing fictions (so nothing copyrighted/in someone else's book/movie/show already). Fictopedia is about creating new fictions by letting users add, edit and cross-link each others' ideas. There is no limit on genre (sci fi, alt-history, present day fiction, fantasy, whatever!) and articles can range from serious to silly. The goal is to see what emerges. Think of it as a fan wiki for all the fictional universes that don't exist yet. I've been working on this with several friends for a while, but I want to throw it open to as many people as possible now. Come create an account and contribute - see where others take your ideas! [more inside]
posted by syntaxbad on Jun 15, 2010 - 13 comments